AA-2026-9266C1
On the image
Someone shot this woodland stream on infrared film stock, a technology that was exotic enough in the 1950s and 1960s that anyone doing it was either a serious amateur or working on assignment—infrared wasn't the kind of thing a casual photographer carried to the woods. The foliage renders in shades of purple and white because chlorophyll reflects infrared light in ways our eyes cannot see, which meant the photographer was engaged in a small act of technical one-upmanship: showing the forest as it really was, at least according to the spectrum, rather than how it merely appeared to witnesses. The river bed catches the light as a bright channel winding through darkened banks, and a wooden structure—a small bridge or platform—sits in the distance where someone once thought it useful to stand at this exact spot. The whole scene has the earnest quality of mid-century nature documentation, the kind of thing that appeared in educational publications or survey work, where looking at the world differently was proof of serious intent. What strikes most is that all this technical apparatus—the special film, the filters, the dedication to capturing what invisible light could reveal—was trained on a stream that was simply flowing as streams do, indifferent to whether anyone photographed it at all.
Visually related — by likeness
Stream Through Deciduous Forest, Infrared Photograph, mid-20th Century. 1950–1965. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-9266C1. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/stream-through-deciduous-forest-infrared-photograph-mid-20th-century.
@misc{aaAA20269266C1,
title = {Stream Through Deciduous Forest, Infrared Photograph, mid-20th Century},
year = {1950–1965},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-9266C1},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/stream-through-deciduous-forest-infrared-photograph-mid-20th-century}
}TY - ART TI - Stream Through Deciduous Forest, Infrared Photograph, mid-20th Century PY - 1950–1965 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-9266C1 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/stream-through-deciduous-forest-infrared-photograph-mid-20th-century ER -
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